| To move at speed in business you’re often forced to make assumptions.
I’ve found myself doing this a lot over the last two years just to scrape through and keep up with the workload.
But you know what they say about assumptions Shawn…
(they’re the mother of all f*ck ups!)
So recently I decided to test some of my assumptions about alignment and clarity within our leadership team.
I secretly hoped it would just back up the theories I had, and confirm that we’re all aligned and moving in the same direction.
But the reality?
It was a bloody disaster!
As I stared at the screen reading the anonymous responses, I felt my face get hotter and hotter.
There was an absolute jumble of comments to questions I thought we’d have had similar answers on!
For that micro-second, I felt that defensive, knee-jerk reaction bubbling up where you look to blame someone, or something.
But I caught myself.
It was flat-out obvious that this was my fault.
And the more I sat with the idea, the more I realised there had been plenty of signals along the way that I’d missed simply, because I continued to make assumptions.
But there’s an even scarier thought…
If I hadn’t asked the team for feedback, I would have continued to miss the juicy insights and create a bigger divide.
And that would have been catastrophic as we charged into next year together.
So today’s email is a nudge to put together your own survey and get some real data about how aligned your team is before you try and crush 2024.
To point you in the right direction, I wanted to arm you with a bunch of questions I used to stick into a survey for your management team.
Let’s dive in.
If you need a survey platform - Survey Monkey might be a good start.
Once you’re ready to create a template, you want to set up three sections - each with a few questions under it.
Here are the ones I used:
START | STOP | KEEP
What do you most think your company should start doing that is not doing currently, and why?
What do you most think your company should stop doing that it is currently doing, and why?
What do you most think your company should keep doing that it is doing currently, and why?
SWOT
What do you think are your company’s top 3 greatest strengths?
What do you think are your company’s top 3 greatest weaknesses?
What do you think are your company’s top 3 greatest opportunities?
What do you think are your company’s top 3 greatest threats?
STRATEGY
What are your company's greatest competitive advantages? Something that your competitors do not have…
State what you believe your company's goals are within the next 3-5 years.
State what you believe your company's goals are within the next 12 months.
Can you please state in a sentence or a paragraph what you believe your company's strategy is to achieve your 3-5 year goal?
Remember to answer these questions yourself as a benchmark.
Get very clear on them.
You might be sitting there thinking you're too busy for this shit.
But the reason I’m saying it's valuable to do now is, that having this data sets you up to build faster than ever in 2024.
If you try to do it in January, you'll discuss it in Feb and start to come up with a strategy in March.
It means you’ve lost the first quarter.
Shawn, I know it's easy to put this type of work off.
I get it. It’s coming into Christmas, you’re busy and so is everyone else.
But it’s a small price to pay for a massive advantage in 2024 which is madness to pass up.
We’ve just completed ours and we’re now looking at the data before we meet again in December to come up with a strategy for the new year.
It’s the first year we’ve ever been this organised and ahead of the game.
And that feels pretty damn good to be honest!
It's exactly the feeling I want for you too!
Remember:
1. Create a simple survey.
2. Capture results over a week.
3. Group responses and prepare yourself.
4. Set a meeting to openly discuss results and set 2024 goals.
I hope this helps!
JD |
